From our own perspectives of supporting people through crises over the past 20 years, We have experienced first hand how a high level of self-awareness of that person directly impacts how they weather the storm.

We are all in relationship with others. We are social animals. Self awareness requires an understanding others, their emotional needs and wants. We can’t know the truth about another without knowing it about ourselves.

Self-awareness is defined as the capacity for introspection and the ability to recognise oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals. The separateness bit is easy to understand but what about introspection? This is where things get a little more complex. The Oxford dictionary defines introspection as the examination or observation of one’s own mental and emotional processes. The same dictionary defines “mental” as being related to the mind and emotions as a strong feeling deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others.

Its like trying to define love, most people recognise it when they feel it but find it much harder to describe.

For us, the self-aware person has a degree of emotional maturity. They know their internal emotional state well and can regulate their mood. They have a rich vocabulary to describe how they feel and more importantly, they are aware of how they feel.

They take responsibility for how they act upon their feelings. Self-aware people take responsibility for their actions, they don’t blame others when things don’t go to plan. They hold themselves accountable for their own actions. They live with honesty and have high integrity.

These are all admirable qualities to live a life by and yet far more challenging to do in reality.

What are these things called emotions?

Emotions can best be described as Energy in Motion. This energy can take many forms and theorists as ever can’t agree on what the basic emotions are. It is said there are a few emotions that are at the root of all other emotional experiences within the human psyche.

The work of psychobiological neuroscientist, Jaak Panksepp identified 7 fundamental networks of emotion in the brain: Seeking, Rage, Fear, Lust, Care, Panic/Grief, and Play. Panksepp’s work has led him to conclude that basic emotion emerges not from the cerebral cortex, associated with complex thought in humans, but from deep, ancient brain structures, including the amygdala and the hypothalamus.

OK, this is getting technical now but is an important consideration in understanding why controlling our emotions can be so challenging. And why we cant just think our way out of our feelings. , the amygdala, and the hypothalamus. The limbic brain is the seat of the value judgments that we make, often unconsciously, that exert such a strong influence on our behaviour.

What can we do to develop our self-awareness?

The work of becoming more self aware is to make our unconscious more conscious. As Carl Jung once said “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate”. There are many ways we can work at this.

Here are just a few

1: The use or psychometric tools can be helpful. One of the best which I have come across is the Human Synergistic’s Life Styles Inventory. It divides the respondents core traits into 3 main styles, aggressive defensive, passive defensive and constructive. It’s a growth model that can help the individual learn more about their behaviors and how they can modify these.

2: Journaling is a well recognised way of better understanding our internal worlds. the act of writing daily about how we feel focuses the mind to become more observant as to what is being felt and how we are reacting to these feelings.

3: Seek honest feedback. this is not an easy one as for many of us, our natural reaction is to get defensive when we are given feedback. Compounded to this is most people are not used to being radically honest in their feedback. That said, if we can cultivate relationships with people that are willing to have a more honest and authentic relationship with us, we can learn and grow more through this rich exchange.

4: JADE – No Justification, No Arguing, No Defensiveness and No Explaining – JUST LISTEN Moreover, when you are busy using JADE, you miss what the person is trying to tell you. If on the other hand you listen and accept feedback without defending yourself, you’re more likely to hear what you need to hear, increasing your credibility with the person giving you feedback and creating a trust bond that will enable them to continue providing useful feedback in the future.

5: Invest in psychotherapy or a coach. This person acts as a mirror and can reflect back our own behaviors. Its important we find a coach that has done their own self-development work so they are clear as to when they might be bringing their own material into the coaching relationship and projecting their own unmet wants and desires. When we have a strong emotional reaction to an interpersonal exchange, chancers are, our own material is being triggered. A self-aware therapist / coach will recognize this, be able to contain their feelings and take them away to work through in a more appropriate space, usually with their own coaching supervisor.

Becoming a more self-aware person doesn’t happen overnight. Rather, it takes years of deep work, reflection, introspection, and difficult conversations with those you are in relationship with.

Investing in our own personal growth will encourage a more inclusive and successful relationships. With time, the more conscious we become, the more comfortable we will be in being open, transparent, and even vulnerable.